'Child School Violence' Kim Seung-hee Resigned... But Suspicions of Power Interference Remain...

Profile Photo with Yoon... Kim Seung-hee's Child School Violence Controversy
Opposition: "Will the Education Office Investigate the Former Presidential Secretary?"

Kim Seung-hee, former Protocol Secretary of the Presidential Office, who is suspected of covering up her child's 'school violence,' has resigned, but suspicions surrounding power interference have not died down.

The opposition party criticized the Presidential Office for immediately accepting Kim's resignation, saying it would be difficult to conduct an effective investigation into the related matters and called it "scapegoating."

Earlier, on the 20th, Kim Young-ho, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, raised allegations during the National Assembly Education Committee's Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education audit that Kim's third-grade elementary school child had assaulted a second-grade junior student’s face with a recorder and fists, causing injuries requiring nine weeks of medical treatment. Kim resigned within seven hours, and the Presidential Office promptly accepted the resignation.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

However, the Democratic Party continues to launch daily offensives, calling it a 'power-driven school violence cover-up' suspicion. Kim claimed there were suspicious circumstances suggesting external pressure, such as the child receiving 15 points?one point short of the 16-point threshold for forced transfer?resulting in a class transfer instead of a forced transfer, and the school violence review meeting being held two months after the incident occurred.

On the 23rd, Kim said on CBS Radio's 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show,' "The class transfer is actually meaningless for the second-grade junior. What significance could the victim place on being transferred from Class 1 to Class 2 in the third grade? Therefore, both the parents and the parties involved raised significant issues about the class transfer."

In particular, Kim pointed out that Kim’s spouse changed their KakaoTalk profile picture to a photo of Kim and President Yoon Seok-yeol together before the school violence review meeting, suggesting they used their relationship with President Yoon to cover up their daughter's school violence case.

Kim said, "That photo was taken on July 10 during NATO. Usually, when prominent figures or well-known people face such incidents, they tend to remove such traces, but that mother instead kept posting photos that could represent power, which I really cannot understand."

Criticism also arose that the Presidential Office's immediate acceptance of Kim's resignation was a form of "scapegoating." Kim said, "Originally, the President’s side said they would conduct an inspection investigation into public service discipline, but a few hours later, the Presidential Office accepted the resignation. Kim Seung-hee is a former secretary. The Presidential Office can no longer investigate, and the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education can investigate, but it is questionable how effective their investigation will be."